background: visceral leishmaniasis (vl), caused by leishmania infantum , is a life-threatening vector-borne parasitic disease is distributed in some parts of the world. the disease is endemic in some parts of iran. this study was aimed to determine the seroprevalence of vl among children and domestic dogs (as a reservoir of the parasite) in dehloran, west of iran material and methods: this cros...

sand fly research has a long history in iran beginning with the work of adler, theodor and lourie in 1930 and followed by mesghali’s foundational taxonomic work on sand flies in 1943. since then, research has continued unabated throughout the country and official publications report the existence of at least 44 species of sand flies (26 of the genus phlebotomus and 18 of genus sergentomyia ) in...

Visceral leishmaniasis is caused by the protozoan parasites Leishmania infantum and Leishmania donovani. This infection is characterized by an uncontrolled parasitization of internal organs which, when left untreated, leads to death. Disease progression is linked with the type of immune response generated and a strong correlation was found between disease progression and serum levels of the imm...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in Northwest and southern Iran. Reports of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in Northwest areas are rare, and its etiological agents are unknown. In the current study, we report six CL and two post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) cases caused by Leishmania infantum from endemic areas of VL in the Northwest. Smears were made from skin lesions of 30 suspect...

Visceral leishmaniosis (VL) due to Leishmania infantum (L. chagasi) is a lethal disease if untreated, but asymptomatic L. infantum infections have been reported previously. A better understanding of parasite transmission, dissemination, and survival in the human host is needed. The purpose of this study was to assess whether L. infantum circulated in peripheral blood of subjects with no history...

BACKGROUND Infection with Leishmania results in a broad spectrum of pathologies where L. infantum and L. donovani cause fatal visceral leishmaniasis and L. major causes destructive cutaneous lesions. The identification and characterization of Leishmania virulence genes may define the genetic basis for these different pathologies. METHODS AND FINDINGS Comparison of the recently completed L. ma...

A cross-sectional serosurvey using Leishmania infantum ELISA was performed on 445 cats living in ecoregions around the Northwestern Mediterranean basin; 58 cats from an area of the US where leishmaniasis is not endemic were used as negative controls. ELISA results were further confirmed in 69 cats by Western blot (WB). Finally, 76 of them were also tested for FeLV and FIV. Seroprevalence by ELI...

Leishmania infantum is the causative agent of infantile visceral leishmaniasis (IVL) in the Mediterranean Basin and, based on isoenzyme typing of the parasite isolated from dogs; this parasite was considered to predominate in the all foci of IVL in Iran. However, based on PCR detection and sequencing of parasite Cysteine Protease B (CPB), only one out of seven sandfly infections in Phlebotomus ...

Ecto-nucleotidase activity is involved in the infection process of Leishmania and various other parasites that enables modulation of host immune responses to promote disease progression. One of the enzymes responsible for this activity is the ecto-nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase (E-NTPDase). The enzyme hydrolyzes nucleotides tri- and/or di-phosphate into monophosphate products, which...

Sandflies associated with opossum nests are reported for the first time in the yards of residences located in the urban area of the municipality of Monte Mor, situated in the metropolitan region of Campinas, state of São Paulo, Brazil. Eleven specimens of Evandromyia cortelezzii and one of Evandromyia lenti were captured in two Didelphis albiventris nests. Ev. cortelezzii is considered a second...